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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491170">The Mighty Worm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts'>Volts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(not actually but i couldn't resist that tag), Blood, Crack Treated Seriously, Drug Use, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, POV Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, People used to believe this folks, Teeth, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Toothache</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:28:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>890</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27491170</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Volts/pseuds/Volts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh dear Gods! It’s got me, hasn’t it?”<br/>“Hold still.”</p><p>~</p><p>“I am troubled by the worm. The tooth worm. It’s been eating at my gums and tooth a week now. It drinks my blood like the parasite it is. A vampire, Geralt! In my mouth!”<br/>Geralt looks like he’s a moment away from laughing, his face schooled very carefully blank. “The worm doesn’t exist,” he says, the ‘you moron’ went unsaid, but Yennefer heard it all the same.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Minor or Background Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>52</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Mighty Worm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/711784">Dead Teeth: Fairies, Rats, and Worms</a> by Boneandsickle (Al Ridenor).
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Inspired by a podcast called Bone and Sickle (by Al Ridenor) ep 43. Dead Teeth: Fairies, Rats, and Worms. </p><p>People really did believe in the tooth worm, they really did try and cure it with powdered ants eggs (and newts and beetles).</p><p>I fully believe Jaskier would believe in the tooth worm. Canonically Dandelion believes the tides are caused by a sea monster sitting at the bottom of the sea drinking and puking up the water (Sword of Destiny). I thought 'tooth worm' wouldn't be so far fetched.</p><p>If you have a thing about teeth, dentists, or pliers I wouldn't read this.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Oh dear Gods! It’s got me, hasn’t it?”</p><p>“Hold <em>still.”</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <em>~</em>
</p><p>Yennefer had been expecting a quiet morning. She’d been busy at market day yesterday, everyone from out of town taking the chance to buy her home remedies.</p><p>Today she’d wanted to wake up late, drink her tea, and finish mixing and bottling her make up.</p><p>Instead she’d just sat down to star crushing charcoal when the shakes as someone knocks on it.</p><p>Geralt’s eyes soften at the sight of her.</p><p>“Yen.”</p><p>“Geralt. Come in. I had no idea you were in the area.” Maybe she could amend her plans, lunch, maybe, then a night of adventurous sex.</p><p>“Geralt did you – oh no!” Jaskier came into view.</p><p>Well there went her plans.</p><p>“Hello bard,” she sighed, resigned for the tomfoolery that would no doubt ensue.</p><p>“Witch, ow!” He clutched suddenly at his jaw, “I need a healer not-” he gestures expansively at her.</p><p>“A healer, really? How’s your throat, Jaskier?”</p><p>He grumbled.</p><p>“Still warbling? How unfortunate.”</p><p>“All right,” he concedes, “But maybe I <em>should </em>have followed your advice, Geralt.”</p><p>Geralt looks a little uncomfortable.</p><p>“What’s the problem?” She led them into her consulting room.</p><p>“I’m afflicted by a cruel beast,” he says, not in the tone of voice he uses to describe heart wrenching love. He actually sounds in pain.</p><p>Geralt rolls his eyes, “He needs a dose of Axii, a pair of pliers, and a course of poppy milk.”</p><p>“<em>No</em> I need powdered ants eggs. And newts and beetles.”</p><p>“What?” Why the fuck would he need beetles?</p><p>“I am troubled by the worm. The tooth worm. It’s been eating at my gums and tooth a week now. It drinks my blood like the parasite it is. A vampire, Geralt! In my mouth!”</p><p>Geralt looks like he’s a moment away from laughing, his face schooled very carefully blank. “The worm doesn’t exist,” he says, the ‘you moron’ went <em>unsaid</em>, but Yennefer heard it all the same.</p><p>“What do you want <em>me</em> to do?” she asks, mildly amused at the free crosstalk. Some people pay money to see theatre like this.</p><p>“Take a look?” He asks in grudgingly, wide blue eyes imploring miserably.</p><p>She makes him wash his mouth out with mint water, and clean his teeth with a brush. He only complains a little. Then she makes him sit in her rocking chair out in her back garden where the light it best.</p><p>It’s clear which tooth it is.</p><p>“Are you rubbing tar directly onto your tooth?”</p><p>“Whath?”</p><p>“It’s completely black. If you’re not careful it’ll spread.” She’s not the <em>most</em> adept at healing but any capable woman with a pair of pliers can pull a tooth. “Geralt’s right, it needs to be pulled.”</p><p>“Oh dear Gods! It’s got me, hasn’t it?”</p><p>“Hold <em>still.”</em> He’ll bite her finger off in a moment so she pulls them out.</p><p>“It’s too late for the ants eggs?”</p><p>“Stop panicking. It’s <em>always</em> too late for ants eggs,” true they <em>are</em> uses in other forms of alchemy but not dentistry.</p><p>“If you pull it, the worm won’t just move to another tooth?”</p><p>She resisted the urge to repeat ‘there is no worm’ and instead promised the idiot, “The worm won’t move.”</p><p>She went back into her house and came back with her pliers.</p><p>His eyes widened at the sight of them, “Don’t worry I boiled them in water yesterday,” deliberately misunderstanding his concern.</p><p>“Ri-right. Uh. Okay.” He doesn’t sound 100% sure. Yennefer gives Geralt a meaningful look.</p><p>“Uh. You’ll be fine Jaskier. I won’t let you feel a thing,” Geralt reassures.</p><p>“Good, good.” He’s gripping the arms of the rocking chair very tightly.</p><p>Geralt Axii’s him. Yennefer pulls the tooth with little difficulty, rubs menthol onto the gap, and drips a measure of poppy milk into the bard’s mouth.</p><p>“How did it get so bad?” She asks Geralt as she sets the pliers on the table.</p><p>“He likes boiled sweets. The kind on a stick. He always has them in the exact same position in his mouth. Against that tooth. He took them up to stop eating the feathers off his quill.”</p><p>Yennefer snorts at the image of Jaskier with a mouth of feathers.</p><p>Jaskier comes-to blearily.</p><p>“Hello Geralt! My mouf feelth all floaty. I can’t feel my nothe. Or my eye. You have lofely eyeth.”</p><p>Geralt’s lovely eyes go wide in response, his eyebrows raising.</p><p>“How long will this last?” he asks her.</p><p>“Only a little while, an hour maybe two, don’t worry. He should fall asleep in a moment.”</p><p>“Did you fight the worm?” Jaskier interrupts, turning to Yennefer, “Throw magic at it. Ith that why I can’t feel my fathe? Did you exthplode my fathe?”</p><p>Yennefer tries not to laugh.</p><p>“And here it ith! You caught it!” He zeros in on the pliers and the remains of his tooth, “I told you they exthisted! Look at hith little tail!”</p><p>Yennefer could kind of see why the root to Jaskier’s tooth might look like a worm.</p><p>“Yes I defeated it, you horrible bard,” she says fondly.</p><p>“I will write you the betht poem,” he yawns, the warm morning sun and the poppy milk lulling him to sleep, “Ever.”</p><p>“Lunch?” Yennefer turns to Geralt.</p><p>Jaskier snores.</p><p>“Sure. He’ll sleep for an hour at least.”</p><p>An hour. There was much they could do in an hour.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please comment and kudos, even if it's just keysmashing.</p><p>Find me on tumblr @whatkindofnameisvolta</p></blockquote></div></div>
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